150Mil BC Fossils of a sauropod named Suuwassea
emileae (ancient thunder) were found in southern Montana in 1998. It
was about 50 feet long and related to Diplodocus.
(SFC, 5/21/04, p.A2)
150Mil BC In 2005 archeologists in Montana worked
to unearth a sauropod believed to be from this time making it about
twice as old as most dinosaur skeletons found in the state. It
seemed to represent a missing link in the evolution of the
sauropods.
(AP, 7/22/05)

100Mil BC A burrowing dinosaur later named
Oryctodromeus cubicularis lived about this time in the area of Idaho
and Montana. Fossils of the creature were discovered in 2005 in
south-western Montana.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryctodromeus)(Econ, 2/11/17, p.71)

80Mil BC Hadrosaurs such as Brachylophosaurus
Canadensis lived in Montana. Biochemical evidence from a fossilized
femur later suggested an evolutionary link of such duck-billed
dinosaurs to birds.
(SFC, 5/5/09, p.A8)
80Mil BC Upper Cretaceous Lance Formation in
Montana, Wyoming and S. Dakota has fossils of Pachycephalosaurus
(thick-headed lizards). They stood on two feet and were herbivorous.
They had a dome-like development on the skull made of solid bone,
most likely used in combat as a battering ram. It stood 5m and had
spikes on its nose and around the back of its skull.
(TE-JB, p.91)(Econ, 10/27/12, p.81)

68Mil BC Fossils of a Tyrannosaurus rex from this
time were found in the Hell Creek formation of Montana in 2003. In
2005 scientists reported that a femur contained soft tissue. In 2007
researchers sequenced amino acids in the tissue and reported that
they matched those of modern chickens. Some sequences matched those
of a newt, a frog and several other animals. In 2008 researchers
said modern bacterial colonies had infiltrated cavities in the bone.
(SFC, 3/25/05, p.A2)(SFC, 4/13/07, p.A6)(SFC,
7/31/08, p.A15)

640000BC Volcanic eruptions in northwest Wyoming,
extending to Idaho and Montana, created a caldera some 40 miles long
and 30 miles wide. The surface collapsed thousands of feet into a
magma pool and marked the area later known as Yellowstone.
Continuing eruptions caused climactic changes around the world.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T5)(HC, 10/10/06)

15000BC-13000BC During the last Ice Age dams of
glacial meltwater repeatedly failed and eroded land in southeastern
Washington state and Oregon. This exposed petrified logs in what
later became Gingko Petrified Forest State Park. An ice dam, which
blocked the Clark Fork River in Montana and created lake Missoula,
broke at least 40 times and caused cataclysmic floods. One Missoula
flood left Portland under 400 feet of water.
(CW, Fall ‘03, p.20)(SSFC, 9/12/04, p.D9)

c1000 Polychromatic rock
drawings were made at Weatherman Draw, also known as the Valley of
the Chiefs. [see Apr 23, 2002]
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.A7)

1805 Jul 19, Members of the
Lewis & Clark expedition made their way up river through the
limestone walled gorge they called the Gates of the Mountains on the
Missouri River in Montana.
(GOTM, brochure)

1833 Aug 9, Maximilian, German
Prince of Wied, reached Fort McKenzie, the westernmost outpost of
white settlement on the Missouri River. He was a student of natural
history and planned to collect native plants and animals and to
study the native people. He was accompanied by Swiss artist Karl
Bodmer. Maximilian’s "Travels in the Interior of North America" was
published between 1839 and 1843.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.10)

1851 Sep 17, The Fort Laramie
Treaty was signed between the US government treaty commissioners and
representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine,
Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations. The Sioux pledged not to
harass the wagon trains traveling the Oregon Trail in exchange for a
$50,000 annuity. The treaty did not last long. Some 12,000 American
Indians gathered at Fort Laramie for a peace council with the US.
The government agreed that 12 million acres of the Mandan, Hidatsa
and Arikara Indians would remain free of settlement (eastern
Montana, northeastern Wyoming and western North Dakota). In 1949
Congress authorized a forced relocation to build the Garrison Dam in
North Dakota. In 1986 Martin Cross won a settlement of $149.2
million for the unjust taking of reservation land. In 2004 Paul
VanDevelder authored “Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the
Trial that Forged a Nation."
(http://tinyurl.com/n7d26ok)(HT, 3/97,
p.43)(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.M5)

1863 Dec 7, Outlaw George Ives,
an alleged member of an outlaw gang known as the "Innocents," robbed
and then killed Nick Thiebalt in the Ruby Valley of what would
become Montana.
(HN, 12/7/98)

1863 Henry Plummer was elected
sheriff by Miners at the booming gold camp of Bannack (then in Idaho
Territory, now in Montana). He poses one of the most haunting
mysteries of the Old West. The soft-spoken young Easterner proved to
be an efficient lawman, yet in 1864 he was lynched by vigilantes.
Their apologist Thomas Dimsdale explained to the populace that the
sheriff had been a "very demon" who directed a band guilty of
murdering more than 100 citizens.
(HND, 7/21/98)

1863 Last Chance Gulch and
Alder Gulch were sites of major 1863 gold discoveries in the
American West. Each became a city and each served as capital of the
territory that eventually became the state of Montana. After the
gold strikes, Alder Gulch became Virginia City and Last Chance Gulch
became Helena.
(HNQ, 2/9/00)

1864 Mar 19, Montana vigilantes
lynched Jack Slade (33), a hell-raising freight hauler. Mark Twain
had encountered Slade in 1861 and included him in his book “Roughing
It" (1872). In 2008 Dan Rottenberg authored “Death of a Gunfighter:
The Quest for Jack Slade, the West’s Most Elusive Legend."
(WSJ, 11/11/08,
p.A15)(www.twainquotes.com/Slade.html)

1864 May 26, Congress created
the Montana Territory and Virginia City became the capital in 1865.
Helena was made capital of the territory in 1875. Montana
became the 41st state in 1889, with Helena the state capital.
(AP, 5/26/98)(HNQ, 2/9/00)

1864 Jul 14, Gold was
discovered in Helena, Mont. Four prospectors discovered gold in a
small stream they called "Last Chance." This marked the birth of
Helena, future capital of Montana. [see 1863]
(Visitor’s brochure, 9/11/97)(MC, 7/14/02)

1864 The US Congress pushed
Idaho’s northeastern border back to the Bitterroot Mountains after
Sidney Edgerton of the Idaho Territory went to Washington with
$2,000 in gold. Edgerton wound up as the territorial governor of
newly created Montana.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.W9)

c1864 In addition to being an
Irish Revolutionary leader and Union commander in the Civil War,
Thomas Francis Meagher also served as the secretary of the Montana
Territory.
(HNQ, 10/10/99)

1866-1868 When the US government tried to force
the Sioux back to Fort Laramie, the Indians responded with attacks
that culminated in Red Cloud’s War of this period. Red Cloud's War
of 1866-'68 was waged in opposition to the development by the U.S.
government of a trail through Wyoming and Montana to the Montana
gold camps. The two-year war was waged between the Lakota Sioux, led
by Ogallala chief Red Cloud, and the U.S. Army. On December 21,
1866, the Sioux won a major victory, wiping out the entire command
of 80 men under Capt. William J. Fetterman. The war ended with the
signing of the Laramie Treaty, which included the closure of the
Bozeman Trail and U.S. abandonment of three forts.
(HT, 3/97, p.43)(HNQ, 8/22/98)

1870 Jan 23, American army
forces, looking for Mountain Chief's band of hostile Blackfoot
Indians, fell instead upon Heavy Runner's peaceable Piegan band in
Montana and killed 173, many of them women and children.
(www.legendsofamerica.com/NA-Blackfoot.html)(SSFC, 12/25/05, p.M2)

1872 Mar 1, President Ulysses
S. Grant signed a measure creating Yellowstone National Park (Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming). The act of Congress creating Yellowstone National
Park was based on a report from an expedition led by Ferdinand
Hayden. The 2.2 million-acre preserve was the first step in a
national park system. Nathaniel Pitt Langford (39) was appointed the
1st Superintendent.
(SFC, 5/19/96, Z1, p.2)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(ON,
11/02, p.4)(PCh, 1992, p.526)(AP, 3/1/08)

1874 May 12, The US Assay
office in Helena, Montana, was authorized.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)

1876 May 17, The 7th US Cavalry
under Custer left Ft. Lincoln.
(MC, 5/17/02)

1876 Jun 17, General George
Crook’s command of 1300 men with friendly Crow and Shoshone scouts
was attacked and bested on the Rosebud River, Montana, by 1,500
Sioux and Cheyenne under the leadership of Crazy Horse.
(HN, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.W2)

1876 Jun 22, General Alfred
Terry sent Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to the Rosebud and
Little Bighorn rivers to search of Indian villages.
(HN, 6/22/99)

1876 Jun 25, In the Battle of
the Little Bighorn in Montana, Gen. George A. Custer and some 250
men in his 7th Cavalry were massacred by the Sioux and Cheyenne
Indians. To crush the Plains Indians and drive them onto
reservations, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 600 7th
Cavalrymen and Indian scouts advanced on an Indian encampment in the
Little Bighorn Valley of Montana. Custer's main concern was to keep
the Indians from escaping, but on this day, he faced the biggest
alliance of hostile Plains Indians--mostly Sioux and Cheyenne--ever
gathered in one place. Custer and his entire personal command, about
210 soldiers, were wiped out. The site is near a region where
paleontologist Prof. Edward Drinker Cope dug for dinosaur fossils
just a few days after the massacre. Custer and his cavalrymen had
attacked an encampment of 2,000 to 4,000 Lakota, Cheyenne and other
Indians.
(WSJ, 11/1/94, p.1)(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A5)(AP,
6/25/97)(HN, 6/25/98)(HNPD, 6/25/99)

1876 Jun 26, Myles Keough's
wounded horse, Commanche, was found after the battle of the Little
Big Horn and led to the steamer The Far West some ten miles away and
transported to Fort Lincoln where he became the celebrated "only
survivor." The horse lived to be twenty-nine and upon his death the
Seventh wanted to preserve his body, so they sent it to the
University of Kansas to be stuffed.
(Internet, Myles Keogh, 8/5/99)

1877 Oct 5, Nez Perce Chief
Joseph and 418 survivors were captured in the Bear Paw mountains and
forced into reservations in Kansas. They surrendered in Montana
Territory, after a 1,700-mile trek to reach Canada fell 40 miles
short. Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrendered to General O.O. Howard and
Colonel Nelson Miles at the Bear Paw ravine in Montana Territory,
saying, "Hear me, my chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where
the sun now stands, I will fight no more, forever." The retreat had
lasted three months and left 120 Nez Perces dead. Miles had found
and surrounded the Nez Perce camp with the help of Sioux and
Cheyenne scouts. Many whites, including Howard, admired the Nez
Perces' fighting ability and Chief Joseph himself, who was
considered humane and eloquent. He died in 1904.
(HFA, '96, p.40)(SFC, 6/13/97, p.A13)(HNPD,
10/5/98)(HN, 10/5/98)

1880 Jun 11, Jeannette Rankin,
Congresswoman from Montana, the first woman in Congress who also
voted against U.S. participation in both world wars, was born.
(HN, 6/11/98)

1884 The Crow Indians were
confined to a reservation in Montana.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow_Nation)(Econ,
4/16/15, p.78)
1884 Some 500 Blackfeet Indians
died during the winter from starvation. Reservation agent John Young
kept rations on hand for the white people.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, Par p.7)

1886 May 9, William Hornaday,
taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institute, arrived with his
assistants in Miles City on a venture to hunt buffalo and learned
that none had been seen for a long time.
(ON, 3/02, p.8)

1889 Feb 22, President
Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington
state to the Union. The "omnibus bill" was an act dividing the
Dakota Territory into the states of North and South Dakota, and
enabling the two Dakotas to formulate constitutions. A
constitutional convention was held at Bismarck beginning July 4,
1889. A constitution was formulated and submitted to a vote of the
people of the State of North Dakota on October 1, 1889, and was
adopted.
(AP,
2/22/99)(www.court.state.nd.us/court/history/dakotaterritory.htm)

1891 Nov 6, Comanche, the only
7th Cavalry horse to survive George Armstrong Custer’s "Last Stand"
at the Little Bighorn, died at Fort Riley, Kan. Comanche, belonged
to Captain Myles Keogh. Born in Ireland in 1840, Keogh was a captain
with the 7th Cavalry and died with every other man in Lt. Col.
George Armstrong Custer's immediate command on June 25, 1876, at the
Little Bighorn in Montana. Keogh's wounded horse, Comanche, was
taken to Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory, where he
recovered and became a pampered celebrity. Comanche died at the age
of 28.
(HN, 11/6/98)(HNQ, 2/26/99)

1892 Oct 15, US government
convinced the Crow Indians to give up 1.8 million acres of their
reservation (in the mountainous area of western Montana) for 50
cents per acre. Presidential proclamation opened this land to
settlers.
(MC, 10/15/01)

1894 Helena became the capital
of Montana.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5A)

1886 Nicholas Hilger began
river boat tours on the Missouri River near Helena at the site of
the limestone cliffs named the Gates of the Mountains by the Lewis
and Clark expedition.
(GOTM, brochure)

1895 Sep 18, The Montana State
Capital Site Commission received the four property deeds from
developer Peter Winne for the new seat of government in Helena.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5A)

1895 While searching for gold
in Montana's Yogo Gulch, Jake Hoover found sapphires. Hoover found
little gold in the Yogo Creek and Gulch, however, the small,
translucent blue pebbles that frequently cluttered the riffles of
his sluice box turned out to be gem-quality sapphires.
(HNQ, 5/13/98)

1895 The Blackfeet Indians in
Montana sold the eastern slope of what later became Glacier National
Park (1910) for mining development. The mining venture fell through.
(SFC, 6/22/06, p.E3)

1900 Edward S. Curtis
(1868-1952) Seattle-based photographer, accompanied ethnographer
George bird Grinnell to a reservation Montana took photographs of
Blood, Blackfeet and Algonquin Indians gathered there for their
annual sun dance. In 1906 he announced plans for 20-volume work
documenting Western Indians, The North American Indian. His first
volume was published in 1907. The last two volumes appeared in 1930.
(ON, 6/12,
p.9)(http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/timeline.html)

c1900 William Andrews Clark of Butte, Montana, was
known as one of the Copper Kings. Clark made a fortune in copper but
was continually stymied in his political ambitions by fellow "king"
Marcus Daly. The third Copper King, Augustus Heinze, used the law to
legally tap into his rival's mines. Clark's home in Butte is now
operated as a bed and breakfast, the Copper King Mansion.
(HNQ, 9/5/98)

c1900 James J. Hill, a turn of
the century robber baron, planned to consolidate the Great Northern
and the Northern Pacific Railroads. His efforts were blocked by
anti-trust regulation and gave Teddy Roosevelt his reputation as a
trust buster. In 1996 Dr. Michael Malone authored "James J. Hill:
Empire Builder of the Northwest."
(WSJ, 10/1/98, p.B6)

1901 Jul 3, Members of The Wild
Bunch, including Kid Curry, committed their last American robbery
near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.
Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and his lover Etta Place had already
fled to New York where a picture of Etta and Sundance was taken. The
trio by this time were settled in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy)

1901-1907 William A. Clark (1839-1925), copper
entrepreneur, served as a US Senator from Montana. In 1899 state
legislature selected Clark for a US Senate seat. Political foes in
and out of his party charged that the election had been won by
bribery. Although Clark freely admitted spending several hundred
thousand dollars to elect legislators favorable to his political
ambitions, he stubbornly denied any involvement in corrupt electoral
practices.
(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404701392.html)

1913 Mary McAboy of Missoula,
Montana, began hand-making Skookum Indian dolls and acquired a
patent for it in 1914. Skookum was a Siwash Indian word that roughly
means bully good.
(SFC, 6/17/98, Z1 p.3)(SFC, 3/16/05, p.G4)

1915 The Many Glacier Hotel was
built in Glacier Park.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A20)

1916 Nov 7, Republican
Jeannette Rankin (R-Montana), lifelong feminist and pacifist of
Montana, became the first woman elected to Congress. As legislative
secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association,
Rankin helped the women of Montana win the vote in 1914, six years
before all American women won the vote. Rankin was elected as a
delegate-at-large to the U.S. House of Representatives. During her
first term in Washington (1917-1919), Rankin strongly supported
isolationism--she was one of 49 members of Congress to vote against
war with Germany in 1917. Rankin served another term in the House of
Representatives from 1941 to 1943, where she created a furor as the
only legislator to vote against declaring war on Japan after the
Pearl Harbor raid. This unpopular stand ended her political career,
but Rankin remained politically active, even leading a 1968 march to
protest American involvement in Vietnam. Jeanette Rankin died in
1973.
(AP, 11/7/97)(HN, 11/7/98)(HNPD, 11/6/98)

1917 Mar 4, Republican Jeanette
Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the
House of Representatives.
(AP, 3/4/98)

1917 Apr 2, Jeannette Pickering
Rankin, a representative from Montana, was sworn in as the first
woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
(HN, 4/2/01)(MC, 4/2/02)

1918 Feb, Montana’s Legislature
passed a sedition law which led to the conviction 79 citizens under
Gov. Sam Stewart. In 2005 Clemens Work authored “Darkness Before
Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West." In 2006 Gov.
Brian Schweitzer posthumously pardoned 75 men and 3 women. One man
was pardoned shortly after the war.
(SFC, 5/3/06, p.A3)

1920s Elections in Plentywood
put Communists in control of local government.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)

1923 Mar 5, Montana and Nevada
passed the U.S.'s first old age pension grants, giving $25 per
month.
(HN, 3/5/98)

1923 Oct 25, The Teapot Dome
scandal came to public attention as Senator Thomas J. Walsh of
Montana, subcommittee chairman, revealed the findings of the past 18
months of investigation. His case would result in the conviction of
Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, and later Secretary of the
Interior Albert B. Fall, the first cabinet member in American
history to go to jail. The scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oil
reserves in Wyoming, involved Fall secretly leasing naval oil
reserve lands to private companies.
(HN, 10/25/98)

1923 Commercial mining of
vermiculite, a mineral used for insulation and the leavening of
garden soil, began in Libby, Montana.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)

1926 Oct 24, Charlie Russell
(b.1864), Western artist, died in Great Falls, Montana. He produced
some 4,000 works of art including a 12-by-25 foot “Lewis and Clark
Meeting Indians at Ross’ Hole," which was hung in Montana’s Capitol.
(Arch, 7/02, p.6)(www.globalgallery.com)(WSJ,
3/16/06, p.A1)

1926 The last grey wolf
disappeared from the Yellowstone region. By 1973 only a few wolves
remained in northern Michigan and Minnesota. In 1995 the federal
government reintroduced wolves to the greater Yellowstone region
(Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) and by 2008 their population reached
1,500.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)

1932 The Going-To-The-Sun Road
was built to cross Glacier Park and climb the Continental Divide.
(WSJ, 11/12/99, p.A20)

1933 May 3, A white buffalo
calf was born in western Montana. He was later named "Big Medicine"
and lived until Aug 25, 1959. His hide was molded to a mannequin and
that went on display at the Montana Historical Society on Jul 13,
1961.
(Helena Museum flyer, 9/11/97)

1933 Richard Throssel (b.1882),
photographer and Montana legislator, died. He was a Cree Indian who
was adopted by the Crow tribe and lived on the Montana Crow
Reservation from 1902-1911. A Book of his work by Peggy Albright was
published in 1997: "Crow Indian Photographer: The work of Richard
Throssel."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, BR p.6)

1938 Jun 19, In Montana 47
people were killed when a railroad bridge in Montana collapsed,
sending a train known as the "Olympian Flyer" hurtling into Custer
Creek. A cloudburst caused the bridge to collapse sending a
locomotive and 7 passenger cars into the creek.
(AP, 6/19/08)(SFC, 6/19/09, p.D10)

1939 The Izaak Walton Hotel was
built between Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness
to house railroad crews servicing the Great Northern Railway. Walton
was a 16th century English author and sportsman.
(SFEM, 12/12/99, p.8)

1941 Italian nationals in the
United States gave the nickname "Bella Vista " to a detention site
in Montana during World War II. After war was declared in Europe,
many Italian merchant ships and their crews were stranded in
American waters. In 1941 the Italian sailors were taken into custody
and sent to a detention site at Fort Missoula, Montana. Upon seeing
the fort’s impressive view of mountain ranges and wildflowers they
dubbed it "Belle Vista" or beautiful site.
(HNQ, 6/5/01)

1949 The Mann Gulch Fire killed
13 smokejumpers. In 1990 "Young Men and Fire," by Norman MacLean
(1902-1990) was published. The posthumously published book is
considered the pinnacle of smoke jumping literature.
(WSJ, 6/23/00,
p.W9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)

1959 Aug 18, A magnitude 7.3
quake near Hebgen Lake, Montana, just west of Yellowstone National
Park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1959_08_18.php)

1960 Mar 21, Capt. John Eaheart
(32), a US Marine Corps Reserve pilot, crashed in his F9F Cougar
fighter jet and disappeared into Flathead Lake, Wyoming, near the
home of his fiancée’s parents. His remains were found in 2006.
(WSJ, 5/23/06, p.A1)

1963 The W.R. Grace company
began operating the Zonolite Mountain vermiculite mine and continued
to 1990. The vermiculite was naturally mixed geologically with
asbestos. By 2009 at least 200 people died of asbestos related
diseases and hundreds more were sickened.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)

1971 Dec 15, Pres. Nixon signed
the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act. An $18 million
Wild Horse and Burro Program, headed by the Bureau of Land
Management, was designed to find homes for wild horses. "Excess"
animals were annually culled. The 10-17,000 wild horses grew to some
43,000 in 1998. In 2004 Conrad Burns, Republican Senator for
Montana, introduced an amendment that removed protection for wild
horses over age 10.
(www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/ecology/wildhorseburro/whb_faqs.shtml)(WSJ,
8/25/98, p.A1)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.90)

1974 Libby Dam, a hydroelectric
facility in Montana run by the Army Corps of Engineers, was built to
serve power markets in the Pacific Northwest. When the dam went up
it stopped periodic flooding of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and the high
water flows that triggered local sturgeon to move upriver and spawn.
(AP, 12/18/09)

1975 Jul 28, The US Dept of
Interior designated the grizzly bear a threatened species in the
lower 48 states under the US Endangered Species Act. Most of the
bears in the lower US lived in and around Yellowstone National Park
in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
(http://fieldguide.mt.gov/detail_AMAJB01020.aspx)(Econ, 11/5/05,
p.88)

1976 Norman Maclean (1902-1990)
published "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories." It was a
story about fly fishing in Montana. Recorded books put out a
cassette version in 1993 with other stories that included "Logging
and Pimping and ‘Your Pal, Jim’," and "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the
Cook, and a Hole in the Sky."
(RB,
1993)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)

1977 Apr, Pres. Carter named
Montana Senator Mike Mansfield (1903-2001) ambassador to Japan.
Mansfield had planned to retire but held the post for 10 years.
(SFC, 10/6/01, p.E1)

1982 Aug 4, Ronald Smith of
Canada killed two Americans in Montana during a drunken road trip.
In March 1893 Smith was convicted and sentenced to death.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.55)(http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/914/914.F2d.1153.88-4115.html)

1985 Brack Duker, a former
executive of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) bought a struggling aluminum
plant in Columbia Falls for $1. Workers agreed to a 21% cut in wages
and benefits to save their jobs in return for half the future
profits.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)

1988 Jun 23, The Yellowstone
Fire began and by Sep 11 burned some 1.6 million acres in Idaho and
Montana.
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A15)

1988 Beal Mountain mine opened
near Butte, Mont. Its owner promoted open-pit cyanide leaching for
extracting gold from ore as modern and environmentally friendly.
Pegasus Gold Corp., a Canadian company, extracted nearly 460,000
ounces of gold over a decade before closing the mine and declaring
bankruptcy in 1998. It left behind a 70-acre, cyanide-contaminated
leach pond with a leaky liner and tons of rubble that sends
selenium-laced runoff into streams, threatening cutthroat trout and
other fish. The 2009 economic stimulus included some funds for
cleaning up this and other similar sites.
(AP, 2/15/09)

1990 Jun, Montana activists
from anti hate groups came together to discuss effective strategies
for statewide activity countering bigotry. The result was a
commitment to form the Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN).
(www.mhrn.org/aboutus.html)

1991 In Montana the name of
Custer Battlefield National Monument was changed to Little Bighorn
Battlefield Monument. A $2 million memorial was dedicated Jun
25,2003.
(WSJ, 6/25/03, p.A1)

1992 Oct 28, The US
Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was enacted.
It banned betting on sports with exemptions to Delaware, Nevada,
Oregon and Montana.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/yenf89a)

1992 Roberta Gilmore, an
accountant for Columbia Fall Aluminum, filed suit against the
company charging that profits were not being shared with the workers
as promised in 1985. The suit was settled in 1998.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)

1993 Greg Mortenson of Bozeman,
Montana, first visited Pakistan to climb K2, the world’s 2nd highest
peak. He failed in climbing the mountain but became interested in
the region. In 1996 he built a school in Korphe, Pakistan, the
first many. By 2008 he had built 55 schools and authored the memoir:
“Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Extraordinary Journey to promote
Peace… One School at a Time" (2006). In 2011 a 60 Minute TV report
said most of his story appears to have been fabricated.
(http://tinyurl.com/42ffko2)(SSFC, 4/6/03, Par
p.5)(Econ, 5/3/08, p.92)

1995 Charles Schwab developed
the exclusive residential community called "The Stock Farm" in the
Bitterroot Valley.
(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A1)

1995 Whirling disease, native
to Eurasia, was first detected in Montana fish. It was caused by a
fungus carried in spores hosted by the Tubifex tubifex worm and was
first detected in the US in 1956 in Pennsylvania.
(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)

1995 In Montana 342 snow geese
died when they stopped for water at the contaminated Berkeley Pit.
The Atlantic Richfield Company, later owned by BP, bought Anaconda
in 1977, and ended active mining in the Berkeley Pit in 1982. Since
then, highly acidic underground water has continuously seeped into
the pit from higher land, creating a rust-colored lake. In 2005
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said "The plan is to continue with
pumps to keep the water below that level and then treat the water
that they pump out and that's going to have to go on until the end
of time."
(Reuters, 9/23/05)

1996 Mar 25, A group of 18
people including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut
themselves up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them
are wanted on state and federal charges that include writing bad
checks and threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have
proved fruitless and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a
helicopter. The standoff by the anti-government Freemen lasted 81
days.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A3)

1996 Apr 1, FBI officials in
Jordan, Montana continued to guard a stronghold of Freemen, an
anti-government group that does not recognize the legitimacy of US
laws.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-12)

1996 Apr 3, FBI agents arrested
a suspect thought to be the Unabomber. Theodore John Kaczynski was
arrested near Lincoln, Montana on a tip from his brother. His mail
bombs had killed 3 and injured 23 over the last 17 years. An
original draft of his manifesto "Industrial Society and Its Future"
was found some days later.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-1)(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-1)(AP,
4/3/97)

1996 Apr 11, Chlorine spilled
from a train and caused the people of Alberton, Montana, to flee for
a day.
(SFC, 4/28/96, B-9)

1996 Jun 3, The FBI pulled the
plug on electricity at the Freemen ranch in Montana in an attempt to
persuade the occupants to negotiate an end to the 71-day-old
standoff.
(WSJ, 6/4/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/3/97)

1996 Jun 6, A family of four
became the first persons to leave the Freemen ranch in Montana since
April, 2 children, their mother and common-law husband.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A10)(AP, 6/6/97)

1996 Jun 13, The 81-day-old
Freemen standoff ended as 16 remaining members of the
anti-government group surrendered to the FBI and left their Montana
ranch. Five Freemen were found guilty in 1998 for various crimes
linked to armed robbery and possession of firearms. Four militants
were convicted in 1998 for plotting to defraud banks. Jurors
deadlocked on six defendants.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/13/97)(SFC, 4/1/98,
p.A2)(WSJ, 7/9/98, p.A1)

1996 Sep 11, Grasshoppers
plagued North Dakota. The insects were a problem in Wyoming, Montana
and Nebraska. Another dry summer and it was predicted that they
would spread to Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A2)

1996 Sep, Greg Mortenson of
Bozeman, Montana, founder of the Central Asia Institute
(cai@ikat.org), built a school in Korphe, Pakistan. The project
expanded to 28 school buildings, 15 water projects and 4 women’s
vocational centers by 2003. Villages were required to increase
girls’ enrollment by 10% a year.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, Par p.5)

1996 Elouise Cobell, a
Blackfeet woman from Browning, Montana, filed a lawsuit alleging
that the US Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held
in trust by the government. In 2010 the US House of Representatives
approved a $3.4 billion government settlement.
{AmerIndian, USA, Montana}
(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A4)

1997 Jul 3, A Montana court
voided a 24-year-old ban on homosexual sex, concluding that the
government has no business meddling in the sexual activity of
consenting adults.
(SFC, 7/3/97, p.A3)

1997 Sep 19, A US Air Force B-1
bomber crashed on a training mission in Montana and all 4 crew
members were killed.
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A1)

1997 Dec 17, A new Montana law,
effective today, made the entire state an offshore banking center,
allowing foreign interests to anonymously stash their cash.
Depositors could not be US citizens and a minimum of $200,000 was
required.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A1)(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.A18)

1997 William Kittredge, retired
Univ. of Montana English prof., published "The Portable Western
Reader."
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.W9)

1998 Jan 22, Theodore J.
Kaczynski pleaded guilty to the Unabomber killings in return for a
sentence of life in prison. In Dec. co-authors Chris Waits and Dave
Shors published "Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski. His 25
Years in Montana."
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.A1)

1998 cMar 10, A school bus and
a train collided near Buffalo and two teenagers, Ben and Christopher
Peterson, were killed.
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A3)

1998 Mar 30, In Columbia Falls
it was reported that $100 million would be distributed amongst 1000
employees of the Columbia Falls Aluminum plant. Roberta Gilmore led
a winning legal suit that claimed the company did not divvy out
profits to workers as promised.
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1,12)

1999 Feb 3, The Clinton
administration called for a mining ban on a large section of federal
land along the Rocky Mountain Front.
(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A3)

1999 May 28, New speed limits
took effect and ended Montana's status as the only state without a
day time speed limit.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A3)

1999 Montana Power under Bob
Gannon began selling all its power assets and began to transform
itself into coast-to-coast fiber optic network, Touch America. Over
the next 2 years power costs soared and broadband equities tanked
with over supply.
(WSJ, 8/22/01, p.A1)
1999 News broke that hundreds
of people had died from asbestos contaminated vermiculite mined by
the W.R. Grace &Co. in Libby, Montana. The mine was closed and
by 2017 some $600 million was spent on a cleanup program.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, Insight p.H5)(SFC, 1/21/17, p.A7)

2000 Apr 29, Clarence Basil
Cuts The Rope, artist and member of the Gros Ventre Tribe, died at
age 64 in Montana.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.B2)

2000 Aug 9, Gov. Marc Racicot
ordered over 6 million acres of southwestern Montana closed to
public use due to 19 major fires over 300,000 acres.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A5)

2000 Aug 16, Gov. Marc Racicot
declared the whole state a disaster area due to the raging fires.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A3)

2000 Aug 29, Gov. Marc Racicot
asked Pres. Clinton to declare the state a federal disaster area due
to the wildfires.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.A3)

2001 Mar 25, Terry C. Johnston,
author of over 30 Western novels, died in Billings at age 54. His
mountain man character Titus Bass was featured in numerous novels
from "Carry the Wind" through "Wind Walker."
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.A18)

2001-2004 US Sen. Conrad Burns, a Montana
Republican, received some $150,000 in donations from Jack Abramoff,
his firms and his clients during this period. On May 23, 2001 Burns
voted against a bill favorable to Abramoff’s clients in the Northern
Mariana Islands. The bill would have phased out a non-resident
contract worker program benefiting benefiting the Mariana’s garment
industry.
(SFC, 12/7/05, p.A6)

2002 Apr 23, Anschutz
Exploration Corp. announced that it would donate the drilling lease
at Weatherman Draw to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The site contained Indian rock art believed to be over 1000 years
old.
(SFC, 4/24/02, p.A1)

2002 May 23, Nathaniel
Bar-Jonah (45), accused of butchering a 10-year-old boy and feeding
his remains to unsuspecting neighbors, was sentenced to 130 years in
prison without parole.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A8)

2002 The family of Christopher
Paolini (18) self-published his book "Eragon" before it captivated a
young stepson of author Carl Hiassen, who brought the book to the
attention of his publisher. "Eragon" was republished in 2003 by
Random House's Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers. Paolini was
home-schooled in Montana.
(AP, 9/18/05)

2003 Nov 28, It was reported
that the New Zealand mud snail had invaded trout streams in Northern
California. They were capable of stripping entire river systems of
algae and had already infested trout streams in Montana.
(SFC, 11/28/03, p.A21)

2003 The Montana Human Rights
Network acquired more than 4,000 of white supremacist books from a
defecting member of The Creativity Movement’s state chapter that had
been located in Superior, Montana. The Network partnered with the
Holter Museum of Art to create Speaking Volumes, whereby artists
transformed the hate literature into pieces that stimulate community
dialogue about the dangers of bigotry.
(www.mhrn.org/publications/specialresearchreports/SonesGoffbriefing.pdf)

2004 Feb 7, In Montana Dick
Dasen, prominent Kalispell philanthropist, was arrested in a
prostitution sting. In 2005 he was sentenced to 20 years in jail for
building up a personal vice-ring of local women and girls. All but 2
year of the sentence was to be suspended pending treatment.
(Econ, 9/17/05,
p.33)(www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/1262/C8/L8)

2004 Sep 20, A small plane with
5 aboard crashed in Montana’s Glacier National Park. 2 survivors
were found 2 days later.
(SFC, 9/24/04, p.A2)

2004 Oct 15, A federal judge
struck down a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton
national parks.
(AP, 10/15/05)

2005 Apr 7, Montana voted to
ban smoking in all public places. Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he
would sign the legislation.
(SFC, 4/8/05, p.A3)

2005 Jun 20, Charles D. Keeling
(b.1928), American atmospheric chemist, died in Montana. His
monitoring of the pure air at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and the South Pole,
begun in 1958, provided CO2 readings that climbed steadily and
became known as the Keeling Curve.
(WSJ, 6/24/05,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_David_Keeling)

2005 Jul 4, Idaho authorities
said they found the remains of Dylan Groene (9) in western Montana.
[see July 2] In 2008 a jury recommended the death sentence for
Joseph Edward Duncan III in the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder
of the 9-year-old boy.
(SFC, 7/5/05, p.A3)(AP, 8/28/08)

2005 Nov 15, Montana, after a
14-year hiatus, re-opened a hunting season on bison drifting across
the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.40)

2005 Montana’s Gov. Brian
Schweitzer signed into law a renewable energy standard that required
15% of electricity sold in Montana to be renewable by 2015.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.36)

2006 Aug 31, In southern
Montana a wildfire burned 20 houses and 15 other buildings as it
spread over some 156,000 acres.
(SFC, 9/1/06, p.A3)

2006 Sep 4, In south-central
Montana a wildfire had spread across 180,000 acres, over 280 sq.
miles, since it was sparked by lightning on Aug 22. It was only 20%
contained.
(SFC, 9/5/06, p.A3)

2007 Jun 8, Two inmates escaped
while working at the Montana State Prison ranch near Deer Lodge. On
June 13 authorities captured Kelly A. Frank and William J. Willcutt.
Frank was once accused of plotting to kidnap the son and nanny of
David Letterman.
(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A2)

2007 Aug 6, Montana was under a
state of emergency as firefighters battled several huge blazes.
Residents near a state park on Michigan's Upper Peninsula were
ordered to evacuate as another wildfire spread there.
(AP, 8/6/07)

2008 Mar 23, It was reported
that 1,195 migrating bison had been culled in Montana after leaving
Yellowstone in search of food. The culling was expected to continue
through April.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A4)

2008 Mar 28, The grey wolf of
the northern Rocky Mountains was taken off the federal protection
list after reaching a population of some 1,500 in the greater
Yellowstone region. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 after
disappearing from the area in 1926. On July 18 a judge restored
protection for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, derailing
plans for public wolf hunts this fall. On Sep 29 a federal court
overturned the Bush administration’s decision to remove gray wolves
from the endangered species list in the Great lakes region.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.44)(SFC, 7/19/08, p.A4)(WSJ,
9/30/08, p.A1)

2008 Jun 3, Barack Obama sealed
the US Democratic presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton did not
give up yet, but said she’d be interested in the No. 2 spot. Obama
won the Montana primary, while Clinton won the South Dakota primary.
(AP, 6/4/08)(SFC, 6/4/08, p.A1)(Econ, 6/7/08,
p.35)

2008 Oct 14, Gray wolves in the
northern US Rocky Mountains returned to the endangered species list,
thanks to a court victory by environmental groups over the US
government [see May 28, 2008].
(AFP, 10/14/08)

2008 Dec 6, A Montana a state
judge ruled that doctor assisted suicides are legal in the state.
(SSFC, 12/7/08, p.A4)
(AP, 3/6/09)

2009 Mar 5, In Bozeman,
Montana, a natural gas explosion collapsed 3 downtown buildings and
prompted the evacuation of a 2-block area. One person was left
missing.
(SFC, 3/6/09, p.A6)

2009 Mar 22, In Montana a
single-engine turboprop airplane crashed just short of Butte’s Bert
Mooney Airport, killing all 14 people aboard, including 7 children.
The aircraft had departed from Oroville, Calif., and the pilot had
filed a flight plan showing a destination of Bozeman.
(AP, 3/23/09)

2009 May 4, Wolves in parts of
the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the
endangered species list, opening them to public hunts in some states
for the first time in decades. States such as Idaho and Montana
planned to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has
been proposed in the Great Lakes region. About 300 wolves in Wyoming
will remain on the list because the US Fish and Wildlife Service
rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could
be shot on sight. An estimated 4,000 wolves lived in Michigan,
Wisconsin and Minnesota.
(AP, 5/4/09)

2009 May 8, A federal jury
acquitted W.R. Grace and 3 of its executives on all criminal charges
that they knowingly contaminated Libby, Montana, with asbestos and
conspired to cover up the deed.
(SFC, 5/9/09, p.A6)

2009 May 12, Five more people
were arrested at the Senate Finance Committee this morning. The
advocates of a single payer health care system were protesting the
fact that Committee chairman Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana)
continues to exclude single payer advocates from a series of
hearings on health care reform. Last week, eight doctors, lawyers
and activists were arrested as they sought to put a single payer
advocate at a table of 15 witnesses. Baucus has reportedly accepted
$413,000 in drug and health insurance campaign contributions.
(SFC, 5/30/09,
p.A7)(www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=690)

2009 Jun 17, The Obama
administration said it will pump more than $130 million into the ,
Montana towns of Libby and Troy, where asbestos contamination has
been blamed for more than 200 deaths.
(AP, 6/18/09)

2009 Aug 12, In Montana a
grizzly bear named Maximus, one of the largest in the state, was
found shot to death on a ranch near Dupuyer. He had stood 7½ feet
tall and weighed 800 lbs.
(SSFC, 8/23/09, p.A7)

2009 Sep 1, Idaho hunters began
stalking gray wolves, following their removal from the federal
endangered species a few months earlier. The quota for this season
was 220. The quota in Montana was set at 75.
(SFC, 9/2/09, p.A8)

2009 Sep 16, Sen. Max Baucus
brought out the much-awaited Senate Finance Committee version of an
American health-system remake, a landmark $856 billion, 10-year
measure that starts a rough ride through Congress without visible
Republican backing. The 6 committee members received an average
$74,600 from health industry lobbyists through June. Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa, led the group with $223,600. Baucus, D-Montana, was 2nd with
$141,000.
(AP, 9/16/09)(SSFC, 9/20/09, p.A1)

2009 Dec 17, The US Fish and
Wildlife Service declared that attempts over the past two years to
save the endangered Kootenai River white sturgeon had failed. An
isolated population of the species lives along a stretch of the
Kootenai that passes through Montana, northern Idaho and southern
British Columbia. Fewer than 500 of the bottom-feeding behemoths
survive. It's been 35 years since they successfully spawned due to
the 1974 construction of Libby Dam.
(AP, 12/18/09)

2009 Dec 31, The Montana
Supreme Court said that nothing in state law prevents patients from
seeking physician assisted suicide, making Montana the third state
to allow the procedure.
(SFC, 1/1/10, p.A5)

2010 Jun 20, In Montana a
tornado ripped the roof off the 10,000 seat Rimrock Auto Arena in
Billings. No injuries were reported.
(SFC, 6/21/10, p.A6)

2010 Oct 13, Tax officials in
Billings, Montana, said developer Tim Blixseth and his wife owe the
state $57 million in taxes on the money they drained from the
Yellowstone Club. The state faced a deficit of $300 million.
(SFC, 10/14/10, p.A9)

2010 Dec 8, Pres. Obama signed
legislation to pay American Indians and black farmers some $4.6
billion for government mistreatment over many decades. The
legislation settled 4 long-standing Native American water rights in
Arizona, New Mexico and Montana.
(SFC, 12/9/10, p.A18)

2010 Ethane concentrations in
the atmosphere began increasing after decades of decline. In 2016
researchers said gas fields in the Bakken Formation in Montana and
North Dakota were responsible for the increases in the air
pollutant.
(SSFC, 5/1/16, p.A10)

2011 Mar 18, US wildlife
advocates and the Dept. of Interior reached an agreement to lift
gray wolf protections in Montana and Idaho and allow hunting of the
predators to resume.
(SFC, 3/19/11, p.A5)

2011 May 24, Reclusive American
copper heiress Huguette Clark (104) died and left most of her $400
million fortune to charity, and nurse Hadassah Peri, who was
randomly assigned to care for her 20 years ago. Clark was the
daughter of Montana Sen. William Clark, who was once the
second-richest man in the country. In 2013 a court fight over her
estate reached a tentative deal giving about $30.5 million to her
distant relatives. Nurse Peri would have to return $5 million and a
valuable doll collection.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_M._Clark)(AP, 6/24/11)(SSFC,
9/22/13, p.A9)

2011 Jun 20, A US federal judge
agreed to a $3.4 billion settlement over mismanaged Indian
royalties. The 15-year suit represents the largest ever approved
against the US government. This followed a long campaign led by
Elouise Cobell (d.2011) of Browning, Mo. Cash payment began to go
out in Sep 2014.
(SFC, 6/21/11, p.A4)(SFC, 9/19/14, p.D3)

2011 Jul 1, Hundreds of barrels
of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an
ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume
25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations. About 63,000
gallons of oil leaked into the river near the city of Laurel. On
June 12, 2015 the US Dept. of Transportation ordered ExxonMobil to
pay a $1 million penalty.
(AP, 7/3/11)(SFC, 7/23/11, p.A4)(SFC, 1/3/13,
p.A6)(SSFC, 6/14/15, p.A8)

2011 Sep 16, In Montana Ty Bell
and Steve Stevenson were on a black bear hunting trip with two other
people along the Montana-Idaho border when they were attacked by a
grizzly bear they had wounded. Stevenson died of a single gunshot to
the chest as Bell tried to kill the bear.
(AP, 9/23/11)

2011 Sep 20, LeRoy Schweitzer
(73), the former leader of the Montana Freemen, was found dead at
the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. The separatist group had
held the FBI at bay for 81 days in 1996.
(SFC, 9/21/11, p.A6)

2011 Oct 16, Elouise Cobell
(b.1945), treasurer of the Black Feet tribe, died in Montana. She
had tenaciously pursued a lawsuit that accused the federal
government of cheating American Indians out of more than a century’s
worth of royalties.
(SFC, 10/18/11, p.A6)

2012 Jan 7, In Montana teacher
Sherry Arnold (43) disappeared after she left her house for a run.
She was pronounced dead on Jan 13. The FBI held 2 men from Colorado
in custody.
(SFC, 1/13/12, p.A6)(SFC, 1/17/12, p.A5)

2012 Apr 5, The Montana
Attorney General’s office said Greg Mortenson, founder of the
Central Asia Institute and author of “Three Cups of Tea" (2006),
mismanaged the organization and misspent its money. He would remain
the face of the charity, but would have to repay $1 million.
(SFC, 4/6/12, p.A7)

2013 Jan 1, Ten states kicked
off the new year with a minimum wage rise of between 10 and 35
cents. The rises went into effect in Arizona, Colorado, Florida,
Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and
Washington.
(Reuters, 1/1/13)

2013 Apr 18, In Montana Zaccary
John Kern (21) and Robert Eric Bottenhagen (21) were arrested on
suspicion of negligent homicide hours after 4 bodies were found in a
burned-out mobile home near Billings.
(SFC, 4/20/13, p.A4)

2013 Jul 7, In Montana Cody Lee
Johnson (25) died in Glacier National Park. Jordan Lynn Graham (22),
his newly-wed wife of 8-days, later admitted that she pushed her
husband off a cliff and then lied about his death. On Dec 12 Jordan
pleaded guilty to pushing her husband. On March 27 she was sentenced
to 30 years in prison.
(SFC, 9/11/13, p.A4)(SFC, 12/13/13, p.A15)(SFC,
3/28/14, p.A14)

2013 Aug 26, In Montana
defendant Stacey Rambold (54) received a 15 year sentence with all
but one month suspended for the rape of student Cherice Moralez (14)
in 2008. Morales committed suicide in 2010, a few weeks before her
seventeenth birthday and before the case went to trial. On Sep 4
state prosecutors said they are appealing the sentence. Rambold was
released on Sep 26. On April 30, 2014, the state Supreme Court ruled
that the one month sentence was too short. On Sep 26, 2014, Rambold
was sentenced to ten years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/mjks62n)(SFC, 9/7/13,
p.A4)(SFC, 9/27/13, p.A7)(SFC, 5/1/14, p.A8)(SFC, 9/27/14, p.A6)

2014 Jan 15, US Air Force
leaders said 34 officers in charge of launching nuclear missiles
have been suspended for cheating on a proficiency test. The scandal
at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana marked the latest in a series
of damaging revelations dogging the country's nuclear force.
(AFP, 1/16/14)

2014 Jan 31, The Roman Catholic
Diocese of Helena, Montana, filed for bankruptcy protection in
advance of proposed settlements for two lawsuits that claim clergy
members sexually abused 362 people over decades and the church
covered it up.
(AP, 1/31/14)

2014 Mar 27, The US Air Force
fired nine midlevel nuclear commanders and said it will discipline
dozens of junior officers at a nuclear base in Great Falls, Montana,
in response to an exam cheating scandal.
(SFC, 3/28/14, p.A6)

2014 Mar 28, US authorities
said 11 people have been arrested for trafficking methamphetamine to
the Bakken oil patch and will face drug conspiracy charges in
Montana.
(SSFC, 3/30/14, p.A11)

2014 Apr 27, In Montana
exchange student Diren Dede of Hamburg was shot to death in
Missoula. Marks Kaarma said he found an intruder in his garage and
shot him twice. Kaarma was charged the next day with deliberate
homicide. Kaarma had reportedly baited and shot Dede following
previous burglaries by local teenagers. On Feb 12, 2015, Kaarma was
sentenced to seventy years in prison.
(SFC, 4/29/14, p.A5)(SFC, 12/5/14, p.A10)(SFC,
2/12/15, p.A10)

2014 Jun 20, In Montana a fire
engine collided with a pickup truck killing a family of five and
Three Forks Volunteer Fire Chief Todd Rummel.
(SFC, 6/21/14, p.A6)

2014 Oct 7, A US federal
appeals court in San Francisco struck down Nevada and Idaho’s bans
on same-sex marriage. The ruling also applies to all nine states in
the court’s territory and will overturn marriage bans in Montana,
Alaska and Arizona.
(SFC, 10/8/14, p.A6)

2014 Nov 19, A US federal judge
overturned Montana’s ban on same-sex marriage. The state’s first
legal same-sex marriage took place the next day in Helena.
(SFC, 11/21/14, p.A6)

2014 Nov 22, In Montana 3
foreign tourists went missing after going missing during a fishing
trip on Mission Lake. Their bodies were recovered over the next five
months.
(AP, 3/31/15)

2014 Dec 17, In Montana Markus
Kaarma (30), who shot and killed German exchange student Diren Dede
(17) caught trespassing in his garage last April 27, was convicted
of deliberate homicide.
(AP, 12/18/14)

2014 Dec 18, A judge in Butte,
Montana, ordered ex-billionaire Tim Blixseth jailed after he failed
to comply with an order to pay $13.8 million to creditors of the
Yellowstone Club. Blixseth, the founder of the club, was blamed for
its 2008 bankruptcy.
(SFC, 12/19/14, p.A9)

2015 Jan 17, In Montana some
50,000 gallons of oil spilled from a pipeline into the Yellowstone
River near Glendive. Residents of Glendive were soon told not to use
municipal water after elevated levels of benzene were found
downstream from the spill.
(SFC, 1/19/15, p.A4)(SFC, 1/21/15, p.A6)

2015 Feb 7, Residents in
Montana began finding dead horses. Somebody had shot up to two dozen
horses and dumped their bodies in a hay field about a mile west of
Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation.
(http://tinyurl.com/ors58py)(SFC, 2/17/15, p.A5)

2015 Apr 8, Ivan Doig (75),
American award-winning author who chronicled the American West, died
at his Seattle home. His 16 books, including the memoir “This House
of Sky," were set in his native Montana.
(SFC, 4/10/15, p.D3)

2015 May 5, The US EPA released
a final cleanup plan for the Montana towns of Libby and Troy where
asbestos dust from a W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine caused
widespread illness.
(SFC, 5/6/15, p.A7)

2015 Jul 16, In northeastern
Montana 4 tank cars of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed
and leaked an estimated 35,000 gallons of oil that was being hauled
from North Dakota.
(SFC, 7/18/15, p.A5)

2015 Oct 9, A US judge approved
a deal between conservationists and Montana officials to restrict
road-building and logging in roughly 22,000 acres (8,900 hectares)
of state forest lands that make up core habitat for federally
protected grizzlies.
(Reuters, 10/9/15)

2016 May 17, It was reported
that an epidemic of crystal meth addiction on the remote Fort Peck
Indian Reservation in northern Montana has led to sex trafficking
amidst poverty, isolation, joblessness and violence. A federal Drug
Enforcement Administration report has said number of drug cases on
Indian lands nationwide rose seven-fold from 2009 to 2014, and crime
rates on some reservations are five times higher than national
averages.
(Reuters, 5/17/16)

2016 Jun 7, The last major
primaries of the 2016 White House race kicked off in California,
Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota hours
after US delegate counts showed Hillary Clinton clinching the
Democratic nomination.
(AP, 6/7/16)(SFC, 6/8/16, p.A1)

2016 Aug 19, Montana wildlife
officials closed a lengthy stretch of the Yellowstone River to all
recreational activities at the height of the summer tourist season
following the deaths of thousands of fish this week from a rare but
virulent microbial parasite.
(Reuters, 8/19/16)

2016 Sep 7, A US federal judge
ordered wildlife managers to enlarge habitat protections in Idaho,
Montana and Colorado for the Canada lynx, a rare wild cat that roams
the Rockies and mountain forests of several other states.
(Reuters, 9/8/16)

2017 Jan 20, Montana reached a
$25 million settlement with more than 1,000 victims of
asbestos-related disease over claims that health officials failed to
bring attention to the hazards of a contaminated mine in Libby. The
mine was closed in 1999.
(SFC, 1/21/17, p.A7)

2017 May 24, Montana
Congressional candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted Guardian reporter
Ben Jacobs and threw him to the ground in Bozeman on the eve of
elections for a House seat. Republican Gianforte was still elected.
On June 12 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 hours of
community service, 20 hours of anger management ordered to pay $385
in fines and court costs in addition to a 180-day suspended jail
sentence.
(SFC, 6/13/17, p.A8)

2032 It was estimated that by
this time all the glaciers of Montana’s Glacier National Park will
have melted.
(SFC, 11/29/02, p.J6)